Letters to the editor

Community must support Whole Child Leon

Congratulations to the United Way of the Big Bend for aggressively working with the Lawton Chiles Foundation to develop Whole Child Leon eight years ago, a program that over the years has made a difference in the lives of so many Leon County children. Now that Whole Child Leon is becoming an independent entity, it is important that the citizens of this county understand the importance of what it is doing for the area's children and support it in future years.

WIL BLECHMAN

wilblechman259@gmail.com

Reagan's viewpoint
is lacking critical context

Re: "Restoring confidence in future of America" (column, Dec. 8).

Michael Reagan bemoans the fact that the U.S. is ranked 16th in the Economist magazine's "where-to-be-born" index, a measure of what country "will provide the best opportunity for a healthy, safe and prosperous life in the years ahead."

Reagan notes that Switzerland, Australia, Norway. Sweden and Denmark are ranked 1 through 5. But he fails to mention that these countries have government-provided health care or individual mandates for health insurance.

Although we have some of the best doctors in the world, medical care in the United States is more expensive and less efficient than that in the aforementioned countries.

There are many factors that contribute to this.

One is that medical doctors are not required to share test results and coordinate treatments for patients and too often do not. Another is that patients can be billed "new patient" charges more than once when they go to different locations of the same clinic in the same city.

Hopefully the Affordable Health Care law, when fully implemented, will contain cost controls and require new efficiencies, including putting all medical records in a database accessible to all medical doctors treating each patient.

RICHARD PFEFFER

optionsexpert@gmail.com

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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